Advent Challenge
by LiGi
Summary: A collection of very short stories for an Advent Calendar Challenge. Day 7: A scare for Scott at a rescue.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N – Hello everyone! So I've been having a problem with writer's block recently and to get back into the habit of writing I am trying to write for prompts and challenges. And what better challenge than an Advent Calendar Challenge!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Thunderbirds!**

 **Hope you enjoy them! And so for day 1!**

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 _Prompt - On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me..._

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Parker put down the cup of tea and the crumpet he'd been munching when the doorbell rang. He pulled his jacket back on and rushed to the door.

Outside was a deliveryman, shifting sheepishly from foot to foot beside a large crate that was almost as tall as he was.

"Hi, mate, one to sign for. For Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward."

"What in blazes is it?" Parker asked, looking incredulously at some of the labels on the crate – 'international special delivery', 'this way up', 'live plants' and most worryingly 'live animals'.

"I, uh, I think it could be a joke… But then you never know with these richies, do you?" The delivery man gave a nervous sort of laugh and rocked back on his heels. "Sign for it?" He asked almost desperately, thrusting the electronic pad at Parker.

Parker grumbled but took the stylus and scrawled his signature.

"Thanks," the guy snatched the handle of the sack truck and all but ran down the drive, almost slipping on a patch of ice, to his van.

Parker walked around the crate several times, listening to a faint scratching inside, but ultimately deciding the crate was perfectly safe. He gave it one more long curious look, then headed back inside and to the drawing room, where he found her ladyship sipping a cup of tea and looking over her calendar of seasonal events and benefits coming up.

"'Scuse me, Milady. Delivery for you, h'out the front."

"Really, Parker? How wonderful, an early Christmas present perhaps." Lady Penelope laid the calendar back on the coffee table and gestured for Parker to lead the way. He stopped at a cupboard by the front door to fetch a crowbar.

Parker saw her eyes light up slightly but her eyebrows give a confused quirk when she saw the crate standing out on the front drive.

"Oh my, whatever could it be?" she asked, with girlish glee. She pulled a card from the front of the crate. "'From your true love.' Intriguing! Open it up, Parker."

Parker positioned the crowbar into the top edge of the crate, lifting off the lid. As he did so the sides folded down to reveal the entire contents of the crate.

"Goodness gracious," Penelope commented.

Parker's mouth dropped open.

Inside the crate was a tree in a large terracotta pot, wrapped with a gold ribbon. And sitting on the soil of the pot at the foot of the tree was a small bird.

What made Lady Penelope's musical laugh ring out so loudly though, was the fact that the tree was a pear tree and the bird, well that was of course a partridge.

"Well I never…" Lady Penelope stared at the tree for several seconds and then laughed again, realisation dawning as she flipped over the card in her hand to read the short message on the other side. 'From all five of us' and a winking face.

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 **A/N – Well, there you go, day 1 done! Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it, it would be lovely to hear what everyone thought so if you want to leave a little review… :)**

 **And hopefully I'll be able to keep this up all month!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N – Hello again, so did everyone like yesterday's story? Here is the second one!**

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 _Prompt – Write about a time a character fell in love_

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Jeff's heart soared as he heard the wail of a scream. It was loud, the baby had strong lungs. Lucille let out a happy little cry, her head falling back onto the pillow as tears seeped from her eyes.

"Congratulations, it's a boy!" the nurse said, handing the tiny, still screaming, bundle to Lucille.

"A boy?" she wept, but Jeff knew they were tears of joy, he knew secretly Lucille had hoped for a boy. "Oh my little boy." She pulled the bundle to her face, kissing the tiny face that peeped out from inside the blue blanket. Then she looked up at Jeff, and he felt like he would explode from the intense love and pride he had for the woman lying before him. There was nothing in the world he could love as much as her.

"Here, Jeffie, do you want to hold him?" She tried to lift the baby off of her chest but she had exhausted all of her strength so Jeff leant down to take him from her.

The bundle was lighter than he had expected, and a bit sticky with blood and fluid, and the baby was still shrieking. He bounced experimentally and the crying stopped as his son blinked open gummy eyelids to peep out with the brightest blue eyes.

The world stopped.

Jeff was frozen in his son's gaze. Even as the baby closed his eyes and began crying again Jeff could not stop the sensation that had flooded his heart and mind. The powerful rush of emotion. The strongest feeling he had ever experienced.

This was love.

And nothing like the love he had for his wife. He had thought he loved her with all of his heart but the way he felt for this tiny screaming bundle eclipsed everything else from his mind. This baby was his. His son. And never before had Jeff felt the need to love and protect anything as much as he did looking at that little face.

He'd heard that women become mothers as soon as they find out they are pregnant but that men don't become fathers until they hold the baby. Before, he had thought it was a load of rubbish, he had been just as excited as Lucille when she told him she was pregnant, he had felt exhilarated and proud and on top of the world that he was a father.

But now he knew the old saying was true, what he had felt throughout Lucille's pregnancy was nothing compared to what he felt now. _Now_ he was a father.

And he loved the tiny boy like only a father can love, powerful and raw and unstoppable.

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 **A/N – Please let me know what you thought :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N – Hello! Sorry I didn't post anything yesterday, the prompt didn't inspire me at all, I sat for ages trying to write but, alas, nothing came to me…**

 **So here is day four instead.**

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 _Prompt – My car got stuck in the snow and you saved me_

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The flight up to Alaska passed in near silence. All of the boys were lost in thought, and none wanted to be the first to speak, either to address the unfortunate circumstances or to make a joke and risk the others turning on them for making light of the situation.

They were on their way to rescue a family whose car had been buried in an avalanche.

Scott still couldn't get the sound of John's shaking voice as he reported the accident out of his head, or the way John's eyes had darted worriedly to their father on the word 'avalanche'.

Their father had given them all a stoic glare and sent Scott, Virgil and Alan on their way. Gordon had looked like he wanted to be absorbed by the couch when he realised he would be staying behind with their father.

"ETA one minute," Scott said, breaking the silence for the first time.

"FAB, Scott. We're thirty-three minutes behind you."

Neither of them mentioned the fact that Thunderbird One could have gotten there almost an hour faster had Scott pushed her to her full speed. But Scott could do nothing until Thunderbird Two arrived, and the painful idea of sitting there on his own, unable to help for over an hour, had somehow pulled the cowardice from Scott that was normally nowhere in sight.

By the time Thunderbird Two arrived, Scott had done several flybys of the site and located the best place to start the Snow Plough Truck to reach the buried car.

Virgil landed and opened the pod, letting Alan in the Snow Plough Truck out. Alan trundled up towards the car and began digging followed a few minutes later by Virgil in the Recovery Vehicle.

The plan was for Alan to dig the snowfall until they found the car then for Virgil to fire a line from the Recovery Vehicle to pull the car out from underneath the snow. Then Scott would go in and help the people from the car.

And everything went perfectly to plan until Scott came to open the passenger door of the newly uncovered SUV. There were three people inside, an older couple up front, both unconscious, and a young woman in the back. She was awake and looking up at Scott in terror. Her appearance instantly made him freeze.

Scott supposed she didn't really look all that like their mother, but his subconscious was trying to draw comparisons. Her short curly hair was nothing like their mother's long straight sheet of hair, even if it was a similar platinum blond. Her eyes were darker than their mother's milk chocolate brown.

But nevertheless, as those eyes met his, Scott felt like he was looking back twenty years, into his mother's face.

"Help."

Her feeble voice jogged Scott back to life and he reached into the car to check the vitals of the old couple in the front. Both were alive, but in shock and very short of oxygen and their skin felt freezing against Scott's hands.

Alan and Virgil arrived at Scott's shoulder, both glancing at the woman in the back the same way Scott had. Together they helped the old couple out of the car and wrapped them in thermal blankets and strapped oxygen masks over their faces.

Scott opened the door for the young woman and she stumbled out of the car, throwing herself into Scott's arms and holding him tight.

Scott glanced at his brothers before securing his arms around the woman, hugging her as she wept and thanked him over and over.

No one had been there to rescue Lucille Tracy from the avalanche that buried her car. But International Rescue would ensure no one else faced the same fate ever again.

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 **A/N – Well, there it is… I'm not so keen on this one, it didn't come out as I wanted really. Let me know your thoughts.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N – Sorry this one is a day late! I really wanted to write for this prompt but my muse wasn't cooperating yesterday! Of course as soon as I saw the prompt my brain instantly took a turn away from Christmas and to the Olympics instead… slightly off prompt, but at least I wrote a little something!**

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 _Prompt – Five gold rings_

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Five coloured rings hang high on the wall above the swimming pool.

Eight men spring from the starting blocks and gracefully arch into the air before smoothly breaking the surface of the water and gliding down the length of the pool. Well, seven men and one teenaged boy. Gordon Tracy, in lane four, swimming for the United States of America is only seventeen years old. He is wearing the blue swimsuit of the US team and his auburn hair is hidden beneath a black hat.

The race is fast and furious. Gordon starts off fourth but as the race progresses he slowly closes the gap between him and the Brit in first place.

His brothers are going mad in the stands, leaping around and hollering at the tops of their voices. His father's eyes look a little misty, nothing in this world can make Jeff Tracy cry like pride for his sons.

And then before they know it, it is all over. Gordon has won, he's beaten the current Olympic Champion and set a new Olympic Record. He stares at the scoreboard.

Scott is clapping so hard his hands hurt, whistling and whooping. John is jumping up and down like a maniac, laughing. Virgil is bawling and shouting, "I knew he'd do it!" over and over. Alan is screaming to anyone who'll listen, "that's my brother! My brother's got the Gold!" Jeff has his hands clasped over his heart, tears streaming down his face as he cheers the loudest of them all.

And Gordon looks up and meets his gaze, the grin threatening to split his face in two. He's never been this happy. He'd been aiming for Silver, never believing he could actually win, actually beat the current champion.

 _Gold_.

Gold, gold, gold! He's got the Gold!

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 **A/N – Shorter than I wanted, but if you want a full account of Gordon's Gold then *shameless self-promotion!* please read my story 'Fishman'! And don't forget to let me know what you thought! :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N – So I failed to write something yesterday again… but here is a little one for today!**

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 _Prompt – He ran, hard._

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Scott ran, dodging between firemen and paramedics seeing to the victims. His leg hurt like hell, the second explosion had knocked his hover scooter over on top of him, but that wasn't going to stop him running.

Because the second explosion had also come from the building Gordon and Alan had been working on clearing, and their comms weren't connecting to Mobile Control anymore.

"Virgil!" he barked into his wristcomm as he ran. "Do you have eyes on Gordon or Alan?"

There was a pause and Scott had run several yards before Virgil answered.

"Not right now. I'm heading back to the building."

"FAB. Me too."

Scott cut the link and continued running. It hadn't seemed like that large an area when they had first arrived, but now that he was running, as hard as he could, it felt like miles between the two buildings.

The now empty building that Scott had cleared of its three victims. And the second building, with its seven victims and Scott's little brothers and an unexplained explosion.

As Scott reached the open door, he saw Firefly trundling towards him, Virgil pushing it to its highest speed. But he didn't wait, he ran into the burning building.

His feet pounded against the solid floor, sending pain shooting up his leg, but he did not stop running, calling for Gordon and Alan.

He could not stop running. Not until he caught sight of the dirty white IR fire suits.

His heart skipped a beat as he noticed the destruction of the room, and the two solitary figures. One was slumped against a wall, a beam pinning him to the floor, and the other was crouched beside him, trying to lift the beam.

Scott ran to their side, immediately reaching to help Gordon lift the beam.

Alan grinned and gave him thumbs up as he gingerly got to his feet. They were both ok. Neither were seriously hurt.

Scott could stop running, and finally let his injured leg crumple beneath him.

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 **A/N – Well, that sort of came out ok… let me know your thoughts :)**


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